Sam Dreben
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Sam Dreben (June 1, 1878 - March 14, 1925), sometimes misspelled "Drebben", and known as "The Fighting Jew", was a highly decorated soldier in the US army and a mercenary who fought in a variety of wars and revolutions.
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[edit] Early life
He was born in Poltava, Russia (now Ukraine). With prospects for a Jew in Czarist Russia exceeding bleak, he ran away twice (once reaching Germany), before emigrating for good at the age of eighteen. He went first to London, then to America, arriving in New York City in January, 1899.
[edit] Military career
One result of the American victory in the Spanish American War was the acquisition of the Philippines. Dreben enlisted on June 27, 1899 and was shipped there to help put down a native insurrection led by Emilio Aguinaldo. He quickly distinguished himself in battle. Later, he participated in the rescue of westerners besieged in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion. Mustered out in 1902, he took a succession of unsatisfactory jobs, before reenlisting in 1904. This time, he was stationed at Fort Bliss. It was here that he was trained how to use a machine gun, a skill for which he became well-known (and would need in later years). He made friends in nearby El Paso, Texas before his second army hitch ended in 1907.
Dreben's wanderings then took him to the Panama Canal Zone. After several unsuccessful business ventures, he was recruited to fight for various liberation movements in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Mexico. It was in Guatemala that he suffered his only combat wound - a shot in the rear. In the Mexican revolution, Dreben fought with and against such famous leaders as Francisco Madero and Pancho Villa. When the latter made his infamous raid on Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916, killing some civilians, Dreben joined the Punitive Expedition sent by an outraged America to bring his former comrade-in-arms to justice. Dreben became good friends with the expedition's commander, General John "Black Jack" Pershing. The Americans were never able to catch the elusive bandito, and the fiasco eventually came to an end in 1917.
In early 1917, Dreben (then thirty-nine) married nineteen-year-old Helen Spence. They soon had a baby daughter. However, America's entry into World War I eventually lured him back into the army. En route to the fighting in France, he received word that his child had died.
Dreben once again distinguished himself in combat. For his bravery at St. Etienne in October of 1918, Sergeant Dreben was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire, the highest French honor.
[edit] Post-war life
After the end of the war, Dreben returned to El Paso, where he divorced his wife because of her infidelity in his absence. The war hero then settled down and started a successful insurance business.
In 1921, Dreben received another honor; he was selected by General Pershing to be one of the honorary pallbearers (along with another World War I hero, Alvin York) for the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11.
In 1923, he married for the second time, this time to Meade Andrews. She convinced him to move to California for a fresh start.
On March 14, 1925, Dreben died when a nurse accidentally injected him with the wrong substance. Newspapers all over the country, including the New York Times and the El Paso Times, paid tribute to him. Famed columnist Damon Runyon wrote a eulogy, and the Texas legislature adjourned for a day in his honor.
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